编者按：惠普信息分析实验室实习生张卓姚：“这是一个很棒的计划。这里有非常丰富的社交活动，我交到了很多朋友。通过在这里实习，让我对未来有了新的看法。我以前认为自己可能会进入学术界，但是我发现实验室同样能够提供很多非常好的机会。”这也是我们最愿意看到的对我们实习生计划的肯定。

             
 

    我们接下来要采访的是来自信息分析实验室的张卓姚（Zhuoyao Zhang）。

    This is a series of profiles featuring interviews with some of this year's crop of summer interns at HP Labs.

  

 

    张卓姚出生于离上海不远的无锡市，大学时代是在复旦大学度过的。她现在正在宾夕法尼亚大学攻读计算机与信息科学专业的博士学位。这两个地方都是以夏日高温湿热而闻名的，因此张卓姚十分享受惠普实验室的帕罗奥图校园区的舒适气候。“这几乎是我能想到的最舒适的夏天。”她开玩笑地说。张卓姚进入惠普信息分析实验室与指导者Lucy Cherkasova一起工作。在研究工作之余，她喜欢徒步旅行、打乒乓球以及看电影。

    Zhuoyao Zhang grew up in Wuxi, near Shanghai, where she attended Fudan University as an undergraduate. She’s now studying for a PhD in Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Both places are known for their intensely humid summers, so Zhang’s been enjoying interning in Palo Alto’s mellower climate. “It’s the most comfortable summer I can remember,” she jokes.  Zhang came to HP to work with mentor Lucy Cherkasova in the Information Analytics Lab.  When she’s not pursuing her research, Zhang likes hiking, playing ping pong and watching movies.

    惠普：你想要做什么方面的研究？

    张卓姚：我正在建立Pig程序的性能模型，实际上它代表着分布式计算系统（mapreduce）工作量的多少。Pig系统程序是一个分析庞大数据群的开放式平台，它让你编写简单的程序以代表复杂繁多的分析工作。当你给程序一些数据信息，开始运行这个程序时，你会想要知道这个程序预计何时可以完成。你还会想要运用某个特定的Pig程序，选择一个希望完成的时间，然后预估出需要提供多少数据信息量。我希望能够建立出适用于这两种预估情况的模型。

    HP: What area of research are you looking at?

    I’m looking at performance modeling of Pig programs, which in essence represent dags of MapReduce jobs. Pig system is an open source platform for analyzing large data sets. Pig allows you to write simple programs to express complex analytic tasks.  When you run such a program, you want to be able to estimate when it’s going to be completed if you devote a specific amount of resources to that program. You also want to be able to take a specific Pig program and pick a time by which you’d like it completed and then be able to accurately estimate what level of resource allocation that would require. I’ve been trying to create models that can help with both kinds of estimates. 

    惠普: 建立这些模型的更广泛的意义何在？ 

    张卓姚：这个暑期项目是惠普实验室“SLO-driven Hadoop”项目的一部分。Hadoop是一种非常流行的能够有效处理“大量数据”的开放式平台。这个项目的最终目的是设计并实现一组新颖的有效的模型以及作业量分析工具，令其自动实现运行管理分布式计算系统（mapreduce）的工作。

    HP: What’s the broader value of creating those models?

This summer project is part of an HP Labs project “SLO-driven Hadoop” Hadoop is a popular open-source platform for efficient “Big Data” processing.

The project aims to design and implement a set of novel performance models and workload analysis tools for automated performance management of MapReduce jobs.

 

    当运行程序中有大型分散的数据群以及多个用户，你希望找到他们之间最有效的分配资源方式的时候，这些模型就显得十分重要了。 

    These models are especially important when you are running programs on large distributed clusters where there are multiple users and where you want be able to allocate the available resources as efficiently as possible between them.

    惠普: 目前你有什么可以分享的研究成果吗？ 

    张卓姚：我们对目前得到的研究成果相当满意。经过我们的测试，我们所建立的这些模型的预计完成时间和标准测试完成的时间基本一致。我打算在结束我的实习之后继续这项研究，我相信会从中得到非常有价值的东西。 

    HP: Any results you can share yet?

    We’re pretty pleased with what we’ve found so far. We’ve tested the models’ estimates against the completion times for benchmark tests and they’ve matched quite well. I’m thinking about continuing this even after my internship. I think there’s some real value in the work.

    惠普: 你是如何了解到惠普实习生计划的？ 

    张卓姚：去年我的一份报告在印度middleware‘2010大会发表的时候，我就联系过Lucy。她当时是Industrial Track的主编。我们发现我们有相同的研究兴趣，并想找到一种合作方式。因此，我参加了这个实习生计划，这样我们就有机会一起合作了，这是一段非常美好的经历。 

    HP: How did you hear about HP’s internship program?

    I first contacted Lucy last year when I had a paper accepted to   Middleware’2010 conference in India and Lucy was the chair of the Industrial Track. We found that we had similar research interests and wanted to find a way to collaborate. Then I got this internship, so we’ve been able to work together, which has been a very nice experience.

    惠普: 在惠普实验室实习这段时间，还有其他令你印象深刻的事吗？ 

    张卓姚：这是一个很棒的计划。这里有非常丰富的社交活动，我交到了很多朋友。通过在这里实习，让我对未来有了新的看法。我以前认为自己可能会进入学术界，但是我发现实验室同样能够提供很多非常好的机会。

    HP: Anything else that’s struck you about interning at HP Labs?

    It’s a great program. There’re a lot of social events and I’ve made a lot of new friends. Interning here has also offered me a new perspective. I thought that I might go into academia, but I can see how research labs could offer a lot of very good opportunities.